


December 19, In Which John Learns That Sherlock Was Right

by Thette



Series: A December Tale [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas, Class Issues, Dysfunctional Family, F/F, Fluff, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Season/Series 01 AU, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Slash, i swear this is fluffy, mild animal cruelty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 14:51:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thette/pseuds/Thette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry and Clara come to visit, and our favourite boys make plans for Christmas. Fifth fic in A December Tale. </p>
<p>Warnings: Dysfunctional family relationships, mild animal cruelty, alcohol abuse, class issues, PTSD-ish nightmares. Despite the warnings, this is still essentially fluff, with a bit of drama thrown in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	December 19, In Which John Learns That Sherlock Was Right

**Author's Note:**

> Betas: awahlbom, melaszka, sheffsfic
> 
> This is the last previously posted part of A December Tale (and I'm sorry for being a few days late in reposting it; should have posted this Thursday). I'm working on the Christmas part, but I'm having a bit of trouble with the enthusiasm, because Martin Freeman is being a dick in interviews. I just have to remind myself that actors are not their characters, and I'm still very fond of John.
> 
> Previously posted [here](http://rosemaryfic.livejournal.com/8242.html) on December 19th 2010.

_John saw the red dot on Sherlock's forehead, heard the shot fired from his own army gun and reacted instantly. He tackled his friend into the pool. The shock wave from the explosion hit just as they broke the surface. Up was down, down was up, he lost his grip on Sherlock and his lungs ached from the pressure. He flailed helplessly and tried to find Sherlock in the darkness. The sound of waves splashing against tiles..._  
  
John woke with a gasp. His rapid heartbeat thundered in his ears, and for a brief moment of terror, he still felt as if he were drowning. The blanket, dry and soft as he clutched it in his sweaty hands, brought reality back. Just a nightmare, then. The angry red numbers on his clock radio told him there were still hours to go until dawn. Downstairs, something splashed. Why would Sherlock be taking a bath in the middle of the night? John turned over with a barely audible mutter of complaint and tried to get back to sleep.

***

After spending the rest of the night restlessly half-sleeping, John gave up on the lie-in he had wanted so badly. He wrapped himself in his dressing gown and stumbled sleepily down to the kitchen, where he found out where those noises during the night had come from. The shock of seeing that... That thing woke him up abruptly. Too early for this. Far too early. He looked for Sherlock, who was nowhere to be seen. The bathroom door was locked. He knocked and shouted. "Sherlock! Are you decent?"  
  
"Who cares about decent?!" came the reply. "But I am dressed." The lock clicked open. That was enough permission for him to barge in on his flatmate.  
  
"I've had enough of this, Sherlock! If you insist on dragging home a defenceless animal for your experiments" — the word was full of scorn — "you need to make sure they're comfortable while they're here. I don't want to confront angry octop... Octopi... in the morning!"  
  
"It's octopodes or octopuses, John," Sherlock said, not taking his eyes off the mirror. "Stop overcorrecting; your ambitious middle-class origins are showing and it's grating on my nerves."  
  
"Well, excuse me for not being insufferably posh." The remark had stung.  
  
Sherlock wasn't shaving, why was he stretching his neck like that? Oh... There was a line of love bites from the angle of his jaw down to the suprasternal notch. "Take a look at this and tell me what you can see."  
  
John stepped closer, his eyes the level of the taller man's neck. "Subcutaneous haemorrhages, five of them in a diagonal line, almost perfectly round." He gently examined Sherlock's neck with his fingers, getting a small wince for his efforts. He tried very hard to be all doctor and forget that he was the one invading his friend's personal space, instead of the other way around. "No other signs of trauma. The bruises are quite fresh, judging by the colour and tenderness." He stepped back. "So, have you been snogging someone meticulous and possessive?"  
  
Sherlock looked at him with a wide grin. "Thank you. I appreciate your observations. You've just cleared a man's reputation. Well, cleared it a bit, anyway." Apparently, he hadn't cottoned on fast enough. Sherlock waved his hands, like he always did when he had come up with something brilliant. "The octopus, John! Even an experienced physician like you couldn't tell the difference between marks from an octopus' suction cups and a mouth."  
  
The octopus, of course. It explained why there was one in the kitchen, and it meant Sherlock had not had someone's mouth all over his neck. John preferred not to think about why that came as a relief. He just grinned back at his crazy flatmate. "You deal with the octopus. And I want you to do it now. Harry's coming over in just a few hours, and I want the place to be something resembling presentable."  
  
"Angelo could probably use one. Do you want me to leave you to your sister's tender mercies?"  
  
"No, by all means, stay. I hate to say this, but you're good for my sanity when I'm dealing with Harry." Sherlock smirked, and left. John showered, and decided he was better off not knowing exactly how Sherlock was going to transport a live cephalopod to the restaurant, or whether he'd kill it first. The kitchen was a mess, but he was the one having a guest, so it was only fair that he did the cleaning. Just this once, he thought, I'm your flatmate, not your housekeeper.

***

Sherlock just sat there reading, while John spent two hours cleaning the flat. The doorbell rang. Mrs Hudson opened the door, and he could hear her chatting to his sister. As he hung the apron in the cleaning cupboard, he heard another voice, a pleasant alto he'd recognise anywhere. Clara! The three women came upstairs. Harry looked just like she always did. Short and solidly built like a true Watson, with spiky blonde hair and as many piercings as she could get away with in her job selling overpriced property to nouveau rich hipsters. Clara was gorgeous, as always. She was eight inches taller than Harry, slim and graceful, her natural black curls framing her heartshaped brown face. "Hello, Harry. Good to see you again. Hello, Clara. I've missed you." He hugged them both and gave Clara a tiny peck on the cheek. Perhaps Sherlock had been right. Maybe they were back together again, or they had something else to tell him. "Come on in, have a seat. Mrs Hudson, do you want to stay for a cuppa?" Their landlady was fond of Harry, for some inexplicable reason, but she declined the offer. "Clara, this is my flatmate, Sherlock. Sherlock, Clara."  
  
"Oh," Clara said. "So you're the famous detective?"  
  
"Don't believe everything John writes in his blog," Sherlock said with disdain. "He never gets the cases right, and he misses almost all my deductions." He lowered his head back over his copy of Modern Soil Microbiology.  
  
John busied himself in the kitchen making tea. He sniffed the milk and tasted the sugar, and both were good enough to use. After pouring the tea, he leaned back and watched his sister and Clara.  
  
"John... We have something to tell you." He tilted his head minutely and smiled at her to go on. "We're back together now." She took her partner's hand. Clara squeezed, encouraging Harry to continue. "Our marriage is worth another try, because we love each other. And I've been sober now, for..." She started counting, and John did the same. It'd been three weeks since the last drunken late night text.  
  
"Three weeks, minus a few days?" She nodded. "Are you doing AA this time?"  
  
"You know me, Johnny. I can't handle AA, they make me want to drink, just to spite them. No, I don't do meetings. I'm not an alcoholic, I'm just a drunk."  
  
"You stole that line from Pratchett."  
  
She shrugged, unrepentant. "It's a good line. And anyway, I've got Clara to help me."  
  
"Because that's the best thing about getting together with an addict," Sherlock said without looking up.  
  
Clara looked uncomfortable with that line of conversation. Time to change the subject. "So, what are you two doing for Christmas?"  
  
It was clearly the right thing to say. Clara shone with enthusiasm. "We're going to a small village on the French Riviera. My parents have a cottage in Saute-le-Requin, and we get to borrow it for a week. We're leaving tomorrow, in fact. It's a wonderful place, John. You should see it, some other time. This Christmas, it's just Harry and me, getting to know each other again. It's been a long year," she said, her thumb stroking Harry's hand.  
  
"Don't worry," Harry said. "I've fulfilled the family obligations this year. You're free to do whatever crazy thing you and Sherlock manage to come up with."  
  
"Thanks. And talking about family obligations, I have a present for you two."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Well, the thing is, Sherlock knew you two were back together."  
  
"Oh, my God! I hate it when he does that!" John just shrugged.  
  
"It's not my fault you've been blatantly obvious about it," Sherlock said.  
  
John left Harry to shout at Sherlock (just a little), and brought the present down from his room. Clara opened it and smiled.  
  
"I'm glad you know the style of our decor so well. This could have been custom-made for us." She admired the painting, a non-figurative work in bold spray colours.  
  
"It was. An up-and-coming artist I know painted it for you." Raz had been happy to paint it for him. John started tidying up the cups and plates, and Clara helped him.  
  
When they were in the kitchen, Clara spoke in a hushed voice. "Harry told me about Sherlock. Are you sure he's good for you? He seems really unpleasant."  
  
John could feel the blush coming on. "I don't know what Harry told you, but..."  
  
"She didn't have to tell me about the love bites."  
  
"Oh, those. No, I didn't make those, it was for a case." He tried several ways of explaining Sherlock's mollusc experiment in his head, but it all sounded even worse than the assumption. "You know what? Don't tell Harry, but they're my fault." Plausible deniability. He didn't admit to anything sexual, he just implied it. Sherlock would probably find a way to blame John for the markings on his pale throat anyway.  
  
"He doesn't seem like a very social person."  
  
"No, he's not. He's an asocial sarcastic bastard with no manners, but I like him anyway."  
  
She smiled in understanding. "Because he's your asocial sarcastic bastard."

***

John saw his sister and sister-in-law out, and listened to their discussion about the painting as they walked down the street to Baker Street Tube station. "I think it should go in the guest room," Harry said.  
  
"No! Who's the interior designer, here? Definitely the downstairs hallway. It will look fantastic against the carmine wall."  
  
"You may be an interior designer, but we both live in the house." Their voices faded away. He closed the door and went back upstairs.  
  
Sherlock was sulking, again. "What?"  
  
"Nothing." He slammed the book closed and lay down in his favourite position on the sofa.  
  
"Okay, then," John said, forcing himself not to pry into the reasons for this sudden attack of bad temper. Not that Sherlock had been particularly nice to Harry and Clara, but he and Harry had had a few very loud arguments before. Harry with Clara was a much nicer person to be around than single Harry. John found the remote control and flipped the telly on. Nothing but sentimental old films and comedy reruns.  
  
"You never talk about your family," Sherlock said, with a hint of interest in his voice. "And Harry said she'd fulfilled the family obligations, but I'm sure she wasn't talking about turkey dinners and Christmas crackers."  
  
"Sherlock," he warned. He could feel his muscles twisting at the thought of a family Christmas dinner.  
  
"We have lived together for almost a year, and the only family obligations you've ever shown any tendency to perform is when you get Harry out of her drunken scrapes." The ice-cold blue-grey gaze was fixed on him. It shouldn't make him squirm. "You're clearly trying to avoid this conversation. What could be more embarrassing than Harry throwing up all over herself and seven police officers? Middle class, as I said, no criminal history. Your reactions to child abuse are not personal, so no overt abuse, but maybe emotional abuse or neglect. Alcoholism is genetic, though. Was your father an alcoholic, too?"  
  
"Alcohol-related dementia with extensive frontal lobe damage. Once a year, one of us goes to see him, and we stay for at least one hour. One hour of incessant obscenities, screamed at the top of his lungs. He never remembers it afterwards." John hated even talking about his father.  
  
"I gather that it's socially appropriate to visit one's parents more often than once a year, which means that you weren't a happy family even before he became ill."  
  
"Before he drank his brain into a sponge after my mother's death, you mean?"  
  
"Is that medical terminology?"  
  
"It's very precise medical terminology. And no, we weren't a happy family. Please, Sherlock, stop. I don't ask about your family, and I want you to stay out of mine." What felt like an eternity of awkward silence followed.  
  
"About my family..." Another silence. "Would you like to spend Christmas with us? I mean, now that Harry will be elsewhere." Sherlock held his hands tented beneath his chin, looking at the ceiling.  
  
"I don't want your pity. I can stay here with Mrs Hudson."  
  
"I helped you stay sane when you were dealing with Harry. I would like you to return the favour." John snorted. "I would be honoured if you'd join me."  
  
His words brought something to mind. John rose, and looked through the pockets of his coat. "Mycroft also wanted me there." He showed Sherlock the crumpled invitation.  
  
Sherlock's face got even whiter, if such a thing was possible. "He always does this to me." His lips thinned, and he left the flat, walking over the table as he usually did when he was upset. He mumbled something, which sounded like "Mine," but John didn't think he'd heard that right.  
  
"Sherlock!" John shouted, but his friend had already left. Bugger. He knew there was something odd about Mycroft's invitation. Only one thing to do. He donned coat and gloves, looking for a black marker pen to write his reply with. A simple "Fuck off, Mycroft" would do. He grabbed the defaced invitation and left. There was a CCTV camera outside Speedy's. He held the paper up to the camera and walked back to the flat. Less than five minutes later, his mobile chimed.  
  
 _Now, now, John. Mind your language._  
  
 _Mycroft Holmes_  
  
Message received, then. He could hear Mycroft tutting in his mind. How to make sure Sherlock understood? He took a picture of the invitation and sent it to Sherlock, along with a forward of Mycroft's message.  
  
Later that night, Sherlock came home, walking about the flat as if nothing had happened. "Sherlock," John said. "I'd love to visit your family as your guest." The look he got in return was priceless. It was very rare to catch the detective surprised. "One thing, though. I'm not a pawn in your games with Mycroft."  
  
"No, you're most definitely not," Sherlock agreed. "You're a player in your own right."  
  
John rolled his eyes. What was he getting himself into?


End file.
